Apologies for the delay in writing a new post. I - and a few of you - have been busy toiling away at improving all facets of the website. It's pretty crazy how much it's grown from just the simple index it once was. Still so much more to do and so many more ideas, but we're making crazy progress! It's also worth noting that the website has been growing in traffic pretty steadily since its launch, but it's not hitting any crazy numbers or anything just yet. That's fine! I am enjoying being able to work on it a bunch and fix stuff now, rather than one day when it maybe gets pretty busy.
If you haven't yet seen it, there's a little About Us page that includes a few fun details (including a Hall of Fame of sorts for our top contributors) and a changelog that explains most of the major changes included with updates to the site. I do just work on this whenever I have the time, as like most of the others on here I work a full-time job. Because of this, there isn't any strict schedule or deadline for completing stuff. We just work on it whenever we have the time!
Just in case you're not the type that likes to scroll through endless changelogs full of minute details, here's a brief summary of some of the things that have been done since the last news update roughly 5 (!!!!!) years ago:
- Restructured website, made the game index the new homepage instead of these boring news updates ;)
- Many cosmetic refreshes/updates, some big, some small
- No more links to the byte1ife Mobile version because it is no longer necessary - all of byte1ife is now responsive! This one took quite a few updates, and more are coming in this department. In case you didn't notice, byte1ife Mobile was the big focus from the last news posts years ago, and now it is essentially gone. The site as a whole has come a long way since!
- Browsing games in the index and in users' collections now includes powerful filters and sorting.
- Linking profiles from other services like Steam or Xbox Live can be pretty badass (more to come).
- Linking of mobile phone for basic notifications (opt-in, obviously).
- More commenting is possible site-wide.
- Logged in users will now see more useful info at the top of the homepage, including a first version of an activity feed.
- Some improvements to Sessions.
- You can now follow and friend other users.
- A basic "gaming compatibility" score is now shown when viewing other users' profiles. This calculation will become more sophisticated over time.
- You can now organize your game collection into completed and favorites, and also create a wishlist.
- Game developers and publishers are indexed.
- Game soundtrack composers are being indexed.
- Game engines are being indexed.
- Most computer parts are now being indexed, and users can now share their rig's specs on their profiles.
- User profile updates.
- Lithium (light) theme mostly complete.
- Forum improvements.
- And much, much more! Too many changes to list (or remember) over the last five years.
If you care to read more, again, just check out our Changelog. We will be updating it soon with a more in-depth look at some of the changes over the last five years.
Before I wrap this up, I just wanted to share a few stats as of the time of writing. So far, thanks to your help, byte1ife has accumulated:
- 2744 games, 197 expansions, 80 DLC items, and 10 mods indexed
- 425 series indexed
- 50 consoles indexed
- 3778 screenshots uploaded
- 196 reviews written
- 2113 games collected by users
- 1193 developers & publishers indexed
And hopefully much more to come!
As always, I am anxious to hear everybody's feedback on the site: what can be improved, what can be scrapped, what can be added, etc. Please feel free to leave a comment below or a post in the forums!
I am planning to spend quite a bit of time over the next few weeks (and months, and years) finishing up a few things that have been in the works for a while now. Can't wait for you all to see it!
Happy gaming!
